Ecopoetry, Ecopoetics & the Life of a Water Poet

July 27, 2008

I ran across this post (from well over a year ago, now) asking about the nature of New American ecopoetry. I read "New American" as friendly to the post-avant crowd, but I so rarely pay attention to poetry politics and career-shaping that I don't have any deeper speculation than that. The speculation there dovetails well with the discussion over on How2's current issue about ecopoetics. There seems to be a lot of hand-wringing about the perception that ecopoetry doesn't seem to want to embrace the post-avant, language, post-language, etc. version of poetry. Indeed, ecopoets seem--mostly--to be content with exploring the School of Quietude (Silliman's dismissive term for poets who reject the avant).

Because I need to get to the business of other aspects of living, I'll drop this in: Language-y work participates far too much--and unreflectively so--in the culture of culture. By taking language as its sole referent, it becomes a monoculture. Therefore, it seems at best dull.

Now, is there a lot of dull SoQ nature poetry out there? Oh, hell, yes. And I'm intrigued by Christopher Arigo's approach to cross-pollinations between what might be called mainstream poetry (whatever that means at this point) and the various avants and their work.

(As an aside, the idea that ecocriticism is not up to the task of revealing new, interesting aspects to a poet's work, as the end of New American Poetry post--first link, above--suggests, seems strange to me. Unless what he's saying is that there's not a secret history to be recovered, in which case I'm with him. But to explore new aspects of work and discuss their implications seems the work of critics.)

July 23, 2008

Fall is off to the printers. I have poems out and about in the world. And we're transforming the house before the semester starts. Quick note, then.

I want to keep reminding myself that children have survived for millennia without foam furniture bumpers and all the amazing, plastic crap you can buy. I mean...wow. You can bankrupt yourself well before they go to college buying, buying, buying. Oh, and dare I mention the fear and paranoia that lurks just below the surface of baby-accoutrement ads?

July 16, 2008

July 13, 2008

So the convention has ended and we have the high-profile but politically explosive and frequently objectionable Cynthia McKinney as the Green nominee. I almost wish for Nader. I myself was pulling for this guy, in part because I'm from a DNA group called Johnson from West Virginia as well. I'm happy to see that he's been drafted for the gubernatorial race by the Mountain Party. Still, McKinney's a gadfly, and she's been able to demand attention. We'll see. I hope to warm to her.

In other parts of life, my brother and his family came, saw, exhausted our small apartment. The oldest boy has taken a turn for the geeky, so we had some long conversations about games, gaming, sf, and so on. This is going to be interesting to watch. The others are, well, still little kids. Strangely, and this goes to a couple of issues that Richard Louv has taken up in his work, these are are indoor kids. Given a choice to visit an outdoor playground and park space or an indoor space (the local Children's Museum), they took the indoor option. Now, the museum was a great place, but they'd already been there once. Let me add, in their defense, that these are active, wiry kids. When we did a nature walk, they had no trouble running around, but they didn't step off the path, and they didn't immediately go looking for bugs, rocks, nests, whatever. It seemed very strange to me.

But really, we had a great time. Hey, That's My Fish and ElkFest were big hits. And the oldest one, as I've hinted, pored over the games collection. And my brother and I had a great evening looking at some old RPGs that we played as kids and showing them to the boy. So, yeah, it was a good visit. This time, the fireworks were simply literal.

July 01, 2008

This alley was labeled as a deadend. Like a career in poetry, one presumes:

This block of Lincoln has "No Trespassing" signs up all over. Good luck:

A close-up of the hard-rented brick house from the above picture:

Up, over, around and down by the railroad tracks, there's an earthberm house:

Long as I'm out walking, taking pictures, why not stand in the middle of the road to take some:

The patterns tires leave in a middle school parking lot:

I'm getting away from pedestrian friendly spaces. But here's a birdcage for you:

And the lack of sidewalk:

More train tracks. No river in sight:

Shelter for lease:

Lincoln. Ground Zero:

After starting at the early south edge of town and wandering through what used to be ocean, forest, plains and farms, I end up here:

The cabin will not open until much later in the evening:

We met back up for frothy adult beverages. As you can plainly see.

The one Deriveur missing from the picture, Trey, came in a bit late. And now he's gone and moved himself to Indianapolis. Damn.

And now the Fourth of July is upon us. My brother and his many offspring will be springing around our yard for the next several days, so I won't be back to the internets for a bit. Or doing much of anything else, really. Cheers.